About This Exhibition
Launched in October 2016, "Tinctor's Foul Treatise" won the 2018 Leab Exhibition Award (Electronic) from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ARCL) and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the American Library Association. Minor revisions and updates were added in March 2019.
A fenestra, or bookplate, on the back cover of the manuscript
The exhibition provides an important point of contact for community members interested in the remarkable medieval and early modern holdings of Bruce Peel Special Collections and those seeking to learn about the Arras Witchcraft Project at the University of Alberta.
Readers interested in viewing a digital reproduction of the full manuscript upon which this material is based can access high-resolution images here.
A full English-language translation of the treatise, prepared by the researchers, was published under the title The Arras Witch Treatises (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016). It is available from various retailers, including Pennsylvania State University Press, University of Alberta Bookstore, Amazon.ca, and Chapters.indigo.ca.
Images in this exhibition may be reproduced on the condition that proper copyright permissions have been obtained (if applicable) and that the following citation is displayed with the image: “Image courtesy of Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta.”
About the Curators
Andrew Colin Gow is Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Alberta
Robert B. Desjardins is an independent scholar and graduate writing advisor at the University of Alberta
François V. Pageau is a doctoral candidate in medieval history at the University of Alberta
Contributors:
Web Design: Natasha Nunn
Images: Jeff Papineau
Digitized Manuscript: Peter Binkley
Bibliographic Support and Metadata: Jesse Carson
Editor: Cheryl Cundell
Exhibition Content: Robert B. Desjardins and François V. Pageau
Program Coordinator (Peel Digital Exhibitions): Linda Quirk
Acknowledgements
The title of the exhibition, Tinctor's Foul Treatise, is adapted from "Tinctor's Foul Manual," the name of a documentary written and produced for CBC Radio's Ideas by Dave Redel. The description of the Arras witch hunts is adapted or paraphrased from a doctoral thesis by Gordon Andreas Singer (University of Maryland 1974). Some of the images of the Alberta Tinctor manuscript are provided courtesy of Richard Siemens, University of Alberta Marketing and Communications, and University of Alberta Libraries. Images of the witches' sabbath and other contents of contemporary Tinctor manuscripts are provided courtesy of the following:
The Paris manuscript (BnF ms. fr. 961, fol. 1r): image courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France
The Brussels manuscript (KBR ms. 11209, fols. 1r and 3r): images courtesy of the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique
The Oxford manuscript (Bodleian ms. Rawl. D. 410, fol. 1r): image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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